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Saltwater Wives
Prologue – Salt in the Blood
They say the sea remembers.
Every scream, every prayer, every woman cast into her depths with stones at her ankles. The water keeps them all.
Some call them mermaids, some sirens, some wives of the tide. Women wronged by men, claimed by the sea, their legs bound forever by invisible ropes, their mouths filled with song instead of air.
Sailors swear you can hear them on nights when the wind dies and the waves turn glassy—soft voices calling, promising comfort, love, salvation. But follow the song, and you’ll never set foot on land again.
There are stories, too, of those the sirens spared. Men who vanished in storms, whose names were carved into gravestones though no body was ever found.
The most whispered tale is of the Maiden’s Mercy, a ship that broke and sank with all hands.
All but one.
A boy named Jonah.
And some say he walks no more on land, but below, at the side of a woman with hair like kelp and eyes like moonlight. A woman who kissed him once, and drowned him sweetly.
The sea remembers.
And she always collects her own.
Chapter One – The Ship’s Secret
The Maiden’s Mercy groaned as though the sea itself resented her. Jonah had long grown used to her creaks, but lately they carried a different weight, a whisper of unease that settled deep in the bones.
It began with missing food. Then, the faint echo of footsteps below deck where no man should be. At night, he dreamt of water dripping steadily in the dark, though the hold was dry.
And sometimes—when he was alone—he thought he heard a woman’s voice, humming in the shadows.
The others muttered of rats, of ghosts, of the sea playing tricks. Jonah wasn’t so sure. He had the feeling that something had been carried aboard the Mercy that did not belong to men at all.
Chapter Two – Whispers in the Dark
The storms came often, sudden and violent. Each one left the crew a little more ragged, a little more afraid.
Jonah noticed the way their eyes darted toward the sea whenever the wind picked up, as though they feared not the waves, but something in them.
More than once, he caught men crossing themselves, whispering of the “wives of saltwater,” cursed women who dragged sailors down to the depths. Jonah laughed it off aloud—but inside, he remembered the footsteps, the humming, the cold brush of water against his cheek when no wave had broken near him.
Something was here. And it was watching.
Chapter Three – The First Glimpse
It was in the storm that Jonah saw her first. Not in the flesh, but in a shimmer of lightning that caught the curve of a face beneath the waterline. Eyes too bright, hair that floated like weeds, lips parted in a song that carried even through the gale.
Mara.
The name came to him unbidden, as though the sea had whispered it into his ear.
She clung to the ship’s hull, singing low, and the storm seemed to answer her. The Mercy pitched hard, sails snapping like bones. Men screamed. Jonah alone looked down and met her gaze.
Her smile was sharp as broken glass.
Chapter Four – The Captain’s Warning
When dawn came, half the sails were torn and three men were gone. Lost to the storm, they said. But Jonah remembered the eyes beneath the water, the lips moving in song.
The captain called the men to deck, his face gray with fear and fury. “Not a word,” he spat. “Not one bloody word about what you think you saw.”
No one argued. But their silence was heavy.
Later, when Jonah lingered by the rail, the captain gripped his arm hard enough to bruise. “You keep away from the water, boy. She’s marked you. Don’t you see it? It’ll be you or all of us.”
Jonah tried to speak, but the captain shoved him back. “Pray she tires of you before we all drown.”
Chapter Five – The Song in His Dreams
From that night on, Jonah dreamed of her. Mara’s voice coiled through his sleep, a sound both tender and cruel. She sang of the deep, of endless dark where no man could harm her again.
When he woke, the tune lingered, slipping from his lips before he even realized he was humming.
The others noticed. They muttered, spat, crossed themselves. The cook refused to serve him. The bosun watched him like a wolf watches a trap.
Even the captain avoided his eyes now. As though Jonah no longer belonged wholly to them.
As though he already belonged to her.
Chapter Six – The Breaking Point
The storm rose with Mara’s song. Waves battered the Maiden’s Mercy from every side, smashing her like a toy. Men clung to rigging and rails, their prayers drowned by the chorus of voices below.
The hull cracked with a sound that curdled Jonah’s blood. Water surged waist-high across the deck, sweeping men screaming into the dark.
“Mara!” Jonah shouted at last, raw and desperate. He didn’t know why—warning, plea, surrender. The sound vanished beneath the storm.
The captain still fought, sword hacking at the water itself. “You’ll not have me, witch!” he bellowed.
Mara’s laughter rose like thunder. The bow split wide, the ship groaning in agony. The Maiden’s Mercy began to sink.
Chapter Seven – The Captain’s Fall
Men vanished beneath the waves one by one, their cries snuffed out like candles. The sea was red with wreckage, the air thick with salt and fear.
The captain fought to the last, sword raised against the storm. But the deck lurched, and he toppled into the sea.
Mara struck then—rising from the deep in a surge of fury. Claws raked his chest, her scream mingling with his. For an instant Jonah saw her in all her wrath, terrible and magnificent.
When the water closed again, the captain was gone.
Chapter Eight – Alone in the Wreck
The Mercy was finished. Broken masts jutted like bones from the sea. Barrels and planks floated like driftwood around Jonah, who clung to the shattered rail with bleeding hands.
The cries of the crew had fallen silent. Only the storm and the song remained.
And Mara.
She circled him in the water, her sisters feasting on the dead below. Her eyes, luminous and sharp, found Jonah in the wreck.
Still she did not strike.
The rope that had once bound him to the ship trailed free now, drifting like a tether between them. Jonah’s chest heaved with exhaustion, with fear, with something else he dared not name.
The sea was hers. He had nowhere left to run.
Chapter Nine – The Touch of the Deep
His grip slipped on the rail. The sea dragged at him, filling his mouth with brine.
Then he felt her.
Not claws this time. A hand—cold, slick—closing gently around his wrist.
Mara’s face hovered just above the waves, hair plastered dark against her skin, eyes burning like moons. Close enough that he could see the shimmer of scales at her temples, the faint curve of fangs when her lips parted.
“You should have drowned with them,” she whispered.
“Maybe I should have,” he rasped. “But I didn’t.”
They stared at one another—predator and prey, boy and siren—until Mara pulled, dragging him into the sea.
Chapter Ten – The Siren’s Kiss
The world softened around Jonah, dreamlike.
Mara’s hand slid from his wrist to his chest, fingers splayed over his heart. The water no longer burned. It filled him, strange and cool, but did not drown him.
Her sisters circled, laughing low and cruel, but none came near. Mara had claimed him.
Her lips brushed his ear. “See as I see. Breathe as I breathe.”
Saltwater slipped into him, soft as silk. Terror melted into something else—dizzying, intoxicating. Her hair drifted against his cheek, her lips almost on his, waiting.
Jonah trembled. He should have feared. Instead, he lifted his hand and touched her face.
Mara’s smile sharpened. She leaned in, closing the space at last, her mouth claiming his in a kiss that tasted of salt and storm.
And in that kiss, Jonah drowned—not in death, but in her.
Chapter Eleven – Claimed
When they broke apart, Jonah gasped—not for air. He could breathe here now, as though the sea itself bent to her will.
Mara’s claws traced his jaw, her voice curling around him like tide.
“You belong to me, Jonah. The land will never have you again.”
He should have fought. He should have remembered the ship, the men, the ruin.
But all he could think of was her touch, her song thrumming through his bones.
And he knew, in the deepest part of himself: she was right.
The End.